Merchants on the Mediterranean: Ottoman-Dutch Trade in the Eighteenth Century

How easy and uncomplicated was it for an 18th-century, medium-sized, Ottoman trade company to expand its business in the West? Which kind of resources, in terms of knowledge, information, experience, contacts and capital, could guarantee its successful passage from the business environment of a precapitalist oriental market to that of a major commercial and financial center of western Europe?

Following the venture of the Ottoman Greek merchants Bartholo and Raphael Cardamici, who in the 1760s traded goods between Smyrna, Constantinople and Amsterdam, Despina Vlami investigates various aspects of the organization and strategy necessary for such an important transition. To expand their wholesale trade business to Amsterdam, the Cardamicis chose as their local correspondent an experienced and strong-minded Dutch merchant, Thomas De Vogel. De Vogel’s letters addressed to his Ottoman clients reveal the course of their business transactions and the making of their personal relationship. At the same time, they are comprehensive and efficient tutorials on trade business and strategy guiding the Ottoman Greek merchants through the unpredictable and unfamiliar 18th-century international business universe.

Despina Vlami is Director of Research in the Research Center for Medieval and Modern Hellenism of the Academy of Athens, Greece, where she directs a program on Trade and Diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean, 17th-19th centuries. She is the author of The Florin, the Grain and Via del Giardino: Greek merchants in Livorno (1750-1868), (2000), and Trading with the Ottomans: The Levant Company in the Middle East, (I.B. Tauris 2015).